First World War.com - Primary Documents - British Prime Minister's Address to Parliament, 6 August 1914 What's New Primary Documents - British Prime Minister's Address to Parliament, 6 August 1914 Reproduced below is the text of the speech given to the British Parliament by Prime Minister Herbert Asquith . Sponsored Links Given on 6 August 1914 - two days after Britain entered the war against Germany in defence of Belgium - Asquith recounted the background to the outbreak of general war in Europe in July/August 1914, placing great emphasis on the efforts of the British Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey , to secure continued peace in the face of German aggression. Asquith finished his speech by stating that Britain would throw her entire Empire's resources into the struggle against Germany in order to ensure victory. British Prime Minister Herbert Asquith's Address to Parliament, 6 August 1914 With the utmost reluctance and with infinite regret, His Majesty's Government have been compelled to put this country in a state of war with what for many years and indeed generations past has been a friendly Power.

The Papers which have since been presented to Parliament will, I think, show how strenuous, how unremitting, how persistent, even when the last glimmer of hope seemed to have faded away, were the efforts of my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary (note: Sir Edward Grey) to secure for Europe an honourable and a lasting peace. Every one knows in the great crisis which occurred last year in the East of Europe, it was largely, if not mainly, by the acknowledgment of all Europe, due to the steps taken by my right hon. Friend that the area of the conflict was limited, and that so far as the great Powers are concerned, peace was maintained. If his efforts upon this occasion have, unhappily, been less successful, I am certain that this House and the country - and I will add posterity and history - will accord to him what is, after all, the best tribute that can be paid to any statesman: that, never derogating for an instant or by an inch from the honour and interests of his own country, he has striven, as few men have striven, to maintain and preserve the greatest interest of all countries - universal peace. The Papers, which are now in the hands of hon.

Members, show something more than that. They show what were the terms which were offered to us in exchange for our neutrality. I trust that not only the Members of this House, but all our fellow-subjects everywhere will read the communications - will read, learn and mark the communications which passed only a week ago to-day between Berlin and London in this matter. The terms by which it was sought to buy our neutrality are contained in the communication made by the German Chancellor to Sir Edward Goschen on the 29th July. I think I must refer to them for a moment. After alluding to the state of things as between Austria and Russia, Sir Edward Goschen goes on: "He [the German Chancellor] then proceeded to make the following strong bid for British neutrality. He said that it was clear, so far as he was able to judge the main principle which governed British policy, that Great Britain would never stand by and allow France to be crushed in any conflict there might be. That, however, was not the object at which Germany aimed.

Provided that neutrality of Great Britain were certain, every assurance would be given to the British Government that the Imperial Government" Let the Committee observe these words: "aimed at no territorial acquisition at the expense of France should they prove victorious in any war that might ensue." Sir Edward Goschen proceeded to put a very pertinent question:- "I questioned His Excellency about the French colonies". What are the French colonies? They mean every part of the dominions and possessions of France outside the geographical area of Europe - "and he said that he was unable to give a similar undertaking in that respect." Let me cone to what, in my mind, personally has always been the crucial and almost the governing consideration, namely, the position of the small States: "As regards Holland, however, His Excellency said that so long as Germany's adversaries respected the integrity and neutrality of the Netherlands, Germany was ready to give His Majesty's Government an assurance that she would do likewise." Then we come to Belgium:- "It depended upon the action of France what operations Germany might he forced to enter upon in Belgium, but, when the war was over, Belgian integrity would be respected if she had not sided against Germany." Let the Committee observe the distinction between those two cases.

In regard to Holland it was not only independence and integrity, but also neutrality; but in regard to Belgium, there was no mention of neutrality at all, nothing but an assurance that after the war came to an end the integrity of Belgium would be respected. Then His Excellency added: "Ever since he had been Chancellor the object of his policy had been to bring about an understanding with England. He trusted that these assurances" - the assurances I have read out to the House - "might form the basis of that understanding which he so much desired." What does that amount to? Let me just ask the Committee. I do so, not with the object of inflaming passion, certainly not with the object of exciting feeling against Germany, but I do so to vindicate and make clear the position of the British Government in this matter. What did that proposal amount to? In the first place, it meant this: That behind the back of France - they were not made a party to these communications - we should have given, if we had assented to that, a free license to Germany to annex, in the event of a successful war, the whole of the extra European dominions and possessions of France. What did it mean as regards Belgium?

When she addressed, as she has addressed in these last few days, her moving appeal to us to fulfil our solemn guarantee of her neutrality, what reply should we have given? What reply should we have given to that Belgian appeal? We should have been obliged to say that, without her knowledge, we had bartered away to the Power threatening her our obligation to keep our plighted word. The House has read, and the country has read, of course, in the last few hours, the most pathetic appeal addressed by the King of Belgium, and I do not envy the man who can read that appeal with an unmoved heart. Belgians are fighting and losing their lives. What would have been the position of Great Britain to-day, in the face of that spectacle, if we had assented to this infamous proposal? Yes, and what are we to get in return for the betrayal of our friends and the dishonour of our obligations? What are we to get in return?

A promise - nothing more; a promise as to what Germany would do in certain eventualities; a promise, be it observed - I am sorry to have to say it, but it must be put upon record - given by a Power which was at that very moment announcing its intention to violate its own treaty and inviting us to do the same. I can only say, if we had dallied or temporized, we, as a Government, should have covered ourselves with dishonour, and we should have betrayed the interests of this country, of which we are trustees. I am glad, and I think the country will be glad, to turn to the reply which my right hon. Friend made, and of which I will read to the Committee two of the more salient passages. This document, No. 101 of the Papers, puts on record a week ago the attitude of the British Government, and, as I believe, of the British people. My right hon. Friend says: "His Majesty's Government cannot for a moment entertain the Chancellor's proposal that they should bind themselves to neutrality on such terms.

What he asks us in effect is to engage to stand by while French Colonies are taken if France is beaten, so long as Germany does not take French territory as distinct from the Colonies. From the material point of view -" My right lion. Friend, as he always does, used very temperate language: "- Such a proposal is unacceptable, for France, without further territory in Europe being taken from her, could be so crushed as to lose her position as a Great Power, and become subordinate to German policy." That is the material aspect. But he proceeded:- "Altogether, apart from that, it would be a disgrace for us to make this bargain with Germany at the expense of France, a disgrace from which the good name of this country would never recover. The Chancellor also in effect asks us to bargain away whatever obligation or interest we have as regards the neutrality of Belgium. We could not entertain that bargain either." He then says:- "We must preserve our full freedom to act, as circumstances may seem to us to require." And he added, I think in sentences which the Committee must appreciate:- "You should...

add most earnestly that the one way of maintaining the good relations between England and Germany is that they should continue to work together to preserve the peace of Europe... For that object this Government will work in that way with all sincerity and goodwill. "If the peace of Europe can be preserved and the present crisis safely passed, my own endeavour will be to promote some arrangement to which Germany could be a party, by which she could be assured that no aggressive or hostile policy would be pursued against her or her allies by France, Russia, and ourselves, jointly or separately. "I have desired this and worked for it" - the statement was never more true - "as far as I could, through the last Balkan crisis, and Germany having a corresponding object, our relations sensibly improved. "The idea has hitherto been too Utopian to form the subject of definite proposals, but if this present crisis, so much more acute than any that Europe has gone through for generations, be safely passed, I am hopeful that the relief and reaction which will follow may make possible some more definite rapprochement between the Powers than has been possible hitherto." That document, in my opinion, states clearly, in temperate and convincing language, the attitude of this Government.

Can any one who reads it fail to appreciate the tone of obvious sincerity and earnestness which underlies it; can any one honestly doubt that the Government of this country in spite of great provocation - and I regard the proposals made to us as proposals which we might have thrown aside without consideration and almost without answer can any one doubt that in spite of great provocation the right hon. Gentleman, who had already earned the title and no one ever more deserved it - of "Peace Maker of Europe," persisted to the very last moment of the last hour in that beneficent but unhappily frustrated purpose? I am entitled to say, and I do so on behalf of this country - I speak not for a party, I speak for the country as a whole - that we made every effort any Government could possibly make for peace. But this war has been forced upon us. What is it we are fighting for? Every one knows, and no one knows better than the Government, the terrible, incalculable suffering, economic, social, personal and political, which war, and especially a war between the Great Powers of the world, must entail.

There is no man amongst us sitting upon this bench in these trying days - more trying perhaps than any body of statesmen for a hundred years have had to pass through - there is not a man amongst us who has not, during the whole of that time, had clearly before his vision the almost unequalled suffering which war, even in a just cause, must bring about, not only to the people who are for the moment living in this country and in the other countries of the world, but to posterity and to the whole prospects of European civilization. Every step we took we took with that vision before our eyes, and with a sense of responsibility which it is impossible to describe. Unhappily, if in spite of all our efforts to keep the peace, and with that full and overpowering consciousness of the result, if the issue be decided in favour of war, we have, nevertheless, thought it to be the duty as well as the interest of this country to go to war, the House may be well assured it was because we believe, and I am certain the country will believe, that we are unsheathing our sword in a just cause.

If I am asked what we are fighting for I reply in two sentences: In the first place, to fulfil a solemn international obligation, an obligation which, if it had been entered into between private persons in the ordinary concerns of life, would have been regarded as an obligation not only of law but of honour, which no self-respecting man could possibly have repudiated. I say, secondly, we are fighting to vindicate the principle which, in these days when force, material force, sometimes seems to be the dominant influence and factor in the development of mankind, we are fighting to vindicate the principle that small nationalities are not to be crushed, in defiance of international good faith, by the arbitrary will of a strong and overmastering Power. I do not believe any nation ever entered into a great controversy - and this is one of the greatest history will ever know - with a clearer conscience and a stronger conviction that it is fighting, not for aggression, not for the maintenance even of its own selfish interest, but that it is fighting in defence of principles the maintenance of which is vital to the civilization of the world.

With a full conviction, not only of the wisdom and justice, but of the obligations which lay upon us to challenge this great issue, we are entering into the struggle. Let us now make sure that all the resources, not only of this United Kingdom, but of the vast Empire of which it is the centre, shall be thrown into the scale. Source: Source Records of the Great War, Vol. I, ed. Charles F. Horne, National Alumni 1923 Sponsored Links Saturday, 22 August, 2009 Michael Duffy A "Dixie" (from the Hindi degci) was an army cooking pot. - Did you know? Prime Minister Herbert Asquith: The human stories behind the outbreak of First World War | Daily Mail Online comments In the first extract on Saturday from his masterly new book marking the centenary of World War I, Max Hastings told how an unpopular Austrian aristocrat blundered into the path of an assassin’s bullet in Serbia — and how his death was the trigger for the horrific conflagration that would follow. Here, he tells how a largely doubting Britain was finally persuaded to enter a war which would cost it a million lives . . .

Newly-arrived in France to fight the Hun, the cocky soldiers of the British Expeditionary Force were greeted like heroes. ‘We were seized by the local inhabitants and dosed with cider,’ recalled Lt Guy Harcourt-Vernon. That first night in August 1914, the cafés in the town square of Amiens rang with toasts and rousing choruses of God Save The King. Only the old women who supervised the local public baths shook their heads and mopped their eyes as they muttered to themselves: ‘Pauvres petits anglais, ils vont bientôt être tués’ — ‘poor English boys, soon they will be dead.’ War opinions: Prime Minister Herbert Asquith told his mistress Venetia Stanley that the Austrian people were' the stupidest' in Europe It was a terrible — and true — prediction. Close to a million British fighting men would lose their lives in the four years of World War I, the centenary of whose outbreak takes place next year. The first deaths came soon enough — though to begin with they were mainly German.

Deployed to positions just outside the Belgian town of Mons, the British soldiers peppered the Kaiser’s oncoming army with state-of-the-art Lee-Enfield rifles and Vickers machine guns. RELATED ARTICLES Share this article Share ‘They came at us in solid, square blocks,’ a British NCO recalled, ‘and you couldn’t help hitting them.’ ‘We steadied our rifles and took aim,’ said another, ‘and they were simply blasted away to Heaven by a volley at 700 yards.’ But the Germans took their casualties and kept coming in overwhelming numbers, supported by cannons and howitzers. ‘God! How their artillery do fire!’ exclaimed a frightened British soldier at what was a new and unwelcome experience for almost every member of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF). Confidante: Prime Minister Asquith told the truth to Venetia Stanley ‘There were four of us in a rifle-pit,’ recalled a private, ‘and our officer walked over to us and I remember thinking: “Get down, you silly bugger.” ‘The poor man was killed. Then the man next to me was hit. He was firing away and suddenly he gave a grunt and lay still.

I’d never seen a dead man before.’ Harcourt-Vernon wrote: ‘Funny how everyone ducks at the sound of a bullet. It is past you by then, but down goes your head every time.’ Soon, too many bullets and shells were passing for any man to have time to duck as they rammed clip after five-round clip into their hot weapons. The British fell back until, by nightfall, the Germans — though they had taken colossal casualties — had captured Mons. In that first encounter, the BEF lost an estimated 1,600 men, many of them taken prisoner, and was now on the run. The next day there were brave rallies. The 9th Lancers and Dragoon Guards charged German guns across a mile of open ground, an extraordinary piece of folly even by the standards of British cavalry. They were led by a colonel who had once won a Grand National steeplechase. But nothing could stop the rout as the BEF was systematically bested by the German forces. As they retreated from an enemy they had been convinced they would trounce, a major in the Grenadiers described ‘a long and trying march in great heat and over very bad and dusty roads.

'The men very tired and rather puzzled as to what we are at’. Many must have wondered what they were doing there in the first place. It was a good question. How and why Britain had joined in what was essentially a solely European war was largely down to one man — Sir Edward Grey, Britain’s Foreign Secretary. In many ways he was a strange choice for that important position. He disliked ‘Abroad’ and spoke no foreign languages — indeed he was so taciturn generally that he rarely spoke at all. An official who worked closely with him thought him ‘a futile, useless fool’. A leading general dismissed him as ‘ignorant, vain and weak’. Yet this was the man who found himself conducting Britain’s response to the outbreak of international posturing, sabre-rattling and mobilising of armies that in the summer of 1914 threatening to escalate into world war. Outbreak: British troops marching through the streets of London after war is declared in 1914 He is usually depicted as a gentle, civilised figure who lamented the coming of war — as exemplified in his famously nostalgic line that ‘the lamps are going out all over Europe [and] we shall not see them lit again in our life-time’.

Yet he more than any other single person — including the always belligerent Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty — was the one who insisted that Britain fulfil its international obligations and stand up against the German bully. As Austria launched its invasion of Serbia, the Russian Tsar ordered the mobilisation of his vast conscript armies and the German Kaiser cast covetous eyes on France, opinion in Britain to these continental shenanigans was mixed. There was little enthusiasm for the autocratic Tsar. ‘Don’t trust the Russians!’ whispered one ambassador. TIPPERARY: THE HIT THE MAIL MADE As they first disembarked in France, the Irish soldiers of the Connaught Rangers burst into ‘It’s A Long Way To Tipperary’. George Curnock, Daily Mail star reporter, heard the song and mentioned it in a dispatch. The paper’s news editor wrote in his diary: ‘The chief [Lord Northcliffe] has given us orders to boom it, to print the music so that everybody shall know it. 'He says, thanks to Curnock’s genius, we shall soon have everybody singing it.’ And so they did.

Prime Minister Herbert Asquith confided to the Archbishop of Canterbury that the Serbs deserved ‘a through thrashing’, but to his 26-year-old girlfriend he was less diplomatic. Although married to his second wife, a baronet’s daughter, after his first died of typhoid, he told young Venetia Stanley: ‘The Austrians are quite the stupidest people in Europe’. But the idea of backing the French against the Germans had many hands wringing in horror. With history on her side, one ancient lady, the great-niece of the Duke of Wellington, declared: ‘It’s not the Germans but the French I’m frightened of.’ Many of the population endorsed the idea of neutrality, feeling that what was happening in Europe was a sideshow best not to be drawn into. The Cabinet was split. Asquith, Grey and the ‘war-painted’ Churchill (as the prime minister called him) wanted to stand foursquare with the French, but David Lloyd George, Chancellor of the Exchequer, stubbornly dug his heels in for staying out of a continental conflict. The prime minister, meanwhile, was furious that the crisis meant the ‘bitter disappointment’ of cancelling a country weekend flirting with the alluring Miss Stanley.

But he was sufficiently on the ball that Sunday — August 2 — to warn the German ambassador over breakfast that there would be dire consequences if German carried out its threat to march on France via neutral Belgium. Britain, he pointed out in no uncertain terms, was a guarantor of Belgian neutrality under a 75-year-old international treaty and would not flinch from its obligations. By now the countdown to war was accelerating fast. Prepare for battle: 'The Daily Mail War Map - 1914', which showed the war strength of the Great Powers, was sold via the newspaper for 2 shillings In Germany, trains crammed with troops were leaving Cologne every three or four minutes heading for the Belgian border, while a message received by the Belgian king demanded passage for the German army through his country. He refused point blank, and the people of Brussels erupted with pride, filling the streets with flags. ‘Oh, the poor fools,’ a German envoy declared as he watched this patriotic display. ‘Why don’t they get out of the way of the steamroller?

We don’t want to hurt them, but if they stand in our way they will be ground into the dirt.’ That evening, the Germans notified the British government of their intention to march through King Albert’s country, with or without his consent. It has sometimes been suggested that the Belgians would have been better off bowing to the inevitable, and granting the German troops free passage. But why should any sovereign nation have done so? Germany’s invasion of Belgium constituted an affront to morality as well as to the European order — the view now adopted by most of the British people, as well as by their government. Early days of power: Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, was urging the Cabinet to take action on Europe This was the tipping point. The moment the Kaiser’s armies crossed into Belgium, any pretence of German innocence ended. The perceived martyrdom of King Albert and his people rallied to the cause of war millions of British people who had hitherto opposed it. Some maintain this was a mere pretext — a fig leaf — since Foreign Secretary Grey and his colleagues were bent upon belligerence even before the issue of Belgium emerged. But I doubt they could have carried their point but for Germany’s violation of Belgian neutrality.

Whereas they recoiled from going to war to support Serbia, the British people seized upon this as a just casus belli. At last they identified moral certainty amid a sea of Balkan and European confusions — the doubter-in-chief, Lloyd George, among them. He eventually fell into line as Asquith gave the order to mobilise the Army. Captain Maurice Festing, of the Royal Marines, got the call while playing in a cricket match. He was 66 not out and had just smashed a ball through the window of the sergeants’ mess. On the afternoon of August 3, Grey rose in the Commons to invite the House to back Britain going to war. ‘British interests, British honour and British obligation’ were at stake, he told them with a passion this mild-mannered politician had never displayed before in his 29 years as an MP. ‘Could this country stand by and watch the direst crime that ever stained the face of history, and thus become participators in the sin?’ he demanded. ‘We would sacrifice our respect and good name and reputation’ if we did not take a stand ‘against the unmeasured aggrandisement’ of the Kaiser’s Germany.

The stunned Commons received his eloquence with overwhelming acclaim. Opposition to war melted away. Just after 8 o’clock the next morning, August 4, German troops duly crossed the Belgian border, and London sent an ultimatum to Berlin demanding they withdraw by midnight — 11pm in London. War supporter: Sir Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon and Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, was the person most keen to take up arms against Germany As darkness fell in Downing Street that night, the Cabinet sat together until Big Ben struck the first note of eleven. Twenty minutes later, a War Telegram was dispatched in plain language to the British Army. In the Royal Marines mess at Chatham, a waiter handed a telegram to the corps commandant, who read it aloud: ‘Commence hostilities against Germany at once.’ This was received with applause by the assembled officers, many of whom would be dead within a year. The civilian population rallied to the cause, too. Diarist and civil servant Norman Macleod was astonished by the ‘extraordinary change in public feeling’. Twenty-four hours previously there had been a strong anti-war sentiment, he wrote, ‘but German refusal to respect neutrality of Belgium absolutely destroyed it’.

There was now ‘a feeling of complete confidence in the government’. WITHIN HOURS, MI5 SMASHES A SPY RING As the last hours of peace ticked away, Walter Rimann, a German spy who had been masquerading as a language teacher in Hull, hurriedly caught the Zeebrugge ferry. He fled just in time to avoid arrest. For days, Vernon Kell, director of MI5, had been at his desk around the clock, organising the round-up of known German intelligence agents. Although his infant organisation had a staff of only 17, he had forged effective links with county chief constables. Now they pounced and 22 arrests were swiftly made. Among them was Karl Ernst, a barber in Pentonville, North London, whose spy-craft consisted of approaching customers who were seamen for information. He also acted as the spy ring’s ‘postman’, receiving letters with instructions from Germany and passing them (and payment) to other agents in Britain. Like most of those caught, he had been identified through the interception of his correspondence, under Home Office warrant.

A few, like Rimann, got away and others may have remained undetected, but German wartime intelligence in Britain never recovered from the initial round-up. Its performance was so poor that Berlin was unaware that the British Expeditionary Force had been dispatched to France until it actually got there. At an English country tennis party, the writer Jerome K. Jerome expressed ‘relief and thankfulness. 'I was so afraid Grey would climb down at the last moment. It was Asquith I was doubtful of. I didn’t think the old man had the grit. 'Thank God, we shan’t read “Made in Germany” for some little time to come’. Some opposition remained. The writer Bernard Shaw wired his German translator: ‘You and I are at war. Absurdity can go no further. 'My friendliest wishes go with you under all circumstances.’ Even after war was declared, impassioned dissenters remained. On August 5, C. P. Scott argued in the Manchester Guardian he both owned and edited: ‘By some hidden contract England has been technically committed behind her back to the ruinous madness of a share in the violent gamble of a war between two militarist leagues.

‘It will be a war in which we risk everything of which we are proud, and in which we stand to gain nothing. Some day we will regret it.’ Many British people in the 21st century believe that Scott was right, chiefly in the light of the horrors that followed. They are un-persuaded that it was necessary to resist the Kaiser’s Germany at such cost. Many have argued in the century since 1914 that the price of participation in the war was so appalling that no purpose could conceivably justify it. More than a few blame Grey for willing Britain’s involvement. But, granted Germany’s determination to dominate Europe and what that would have meant for Britain, would any foreign secretary have acted responsibly if he had taken no steps designed to avert such an outcome? Dominance was the purpose of the Kaiser’s Germany, achieved by peaceful means if possible, but by war if necessary. And though its policies cannot be equated with that of the Nazis a generation later, they could scarcely be described as enlightened. German behaviour during the invasion of Belgium and France included massacres of civilians endorsed at the highest level.

Though these pale against what took place in World War II, they nonetheless convey a profoundly disturbing image of the regime that aspired to rule Europe in 1914. A few modern sensationalists suggest that a German victory would merely have created an entity resembling the European Union half a century before it was created, but this seems to me frivolous nonsense. Nor would there have been a happy outcome for Britain if we had stayed out of the war. It is implausible that a victorious Germany would have been content to make a generous accommodation with a neutral Britain. The resulting war: British infantrymen occupying a rudimentary shallow trench in a devastated landscape in France before an advance in 1916 I think it unlikely that any course of action adopted by Asquith’s government could have averted war in 1914. I cannot conceive of any alternative British diplomatic path which would have persuaded Germany that the risk of war was unacceptable. The Germans — contemptuous of Britain’s military prowess — had already discounted British intervention. They were also undeterred by the economic perils posed by the Royal Navy’s ability to impose a blockade, because they intended to win the war in six weeks, before economic sanctions mattered.

Only by allowing the Germans to have their way at gunpoint in Belgium and indeed across Europe could a general conflict have been avoided — and Britain, rightly, was not prepared to do that. There was, however, one grievous British error at this time — one which those poor British soldiers fleeing for their lives from Mons were now suffering from. The government’s mistake in the summer of 1914 was to suppose the nation could maintain its cherished balance of power on the continent without a credible mass of soldiers to support its diplomacy. ‘What happens now?’ Churchill had demanded as he and Grey left the House of Commons after winning the vote for war. It was a good question. The decision had been taken to fight, but what sort of war we were going into and how precisely we would engage the enemy was left up in the air. The initial moves were tentative. There was no full-scale mobilisation and no enlistment of volunteers, as in other countries. Instead, the small BEF consisting of just six divisions of regular soldiers was assembled — ‘our funny little army’ in the words of General Sir Henry Wilson, director of military operations.

The BEF trundled around France in the weeks ahead, uncertain of its role, before meeting its match at Mons. Here was a manifestation of a huge, historic British folly, repeated over many centuries including today — the adoption of gesture strategy, committing small forces as an earnest of good intentions, heedless of their gross inadequacy for the military purpose at hand. The size and nature of Britain’s military commitment would have to change drastically, and it did as more troops poured across the Channel in the years ahead. But almost a century on, it seems there are still lessons to be learned from 1914. EXTRACTED from Catastrophe: Europe Goes To War 1914 by Max Hastings, to be published by William Collins on Thursday at £30. © 2013 Max Hastings.

To order a copy for £23 (including P&P), call 0844 472 4157 David Lloyd George | prime minister of United Kingdom | Britannica.com prime minister of United Kingdom Written By: Alternative Titles: 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor, Viscount Gwynedd of Dwyfor David Lloyd George Prime minister of United Kingdom Also known as 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor Viscount Gwynedd of Dwyfor John French, 1st earl of Ypres David Lloyd George, also called (1945) 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor, Viscount Gwynedd of Dwyfor (born Jan. 17, 1863, Manchester , Eng.—died March 26, 1945, Ty-newydd, near Llanystumdwy, Caernarvonshire , Wales ), British prime minister (1916–22) who dominated the British political scene in the latter part of World War I . He was raised to the peerage in the year of his death.

David Lloyd George Hulton Archive/Getty Images Early life Lloyd George’s father was a Welshman from Pembrokeshire and had become headmaster of an elementary school in Manchester. His mother was the daughter of David Lloyd, a Baptist minister. His father died in June 1864, leaving Mrs. George in poverty. She moved to Llanystumdwy in Caernarvonshire, where her brother Richard, a shoemaker and Baptist minister, supported her and her children; and it was from him that David Lloyd George imbibed many of his formative beliefs. His uncle enabled him to embark at the age of 14 on the career of a solicitor; he became articled (1879) to a firm at Portmadoc, passing his final examination in 1884. In Wales, as in Ireland , an anglicized and Anglican Tory “ascendancy” class of landed gentry dominated a Celtic people of different race and religion.

The causes of the Liberal Party, the Welsh nation, and Nonconformity were inseparable in the atmosphere in which Lloyd George was raised, and he first made his name by a successful battle in the courts to establish the right of Nonconformists to burial in the churchyard of their parish. Ironically, he who came to be the standard-bearer of the oppressed religious sects had lost his faith even as a boy. As a young man, Lloyd George had the romantic good looks that ensured success with women. After numerous love affairs, he was married in 1888 to Margaret Owen, who bore him two sons and three daughters. The marriage cannot be described as happy. Lloyd George was incapable of fidelity , and his affairs with other women were notorious . His wife stood by him on many occasions, but in the end his behaviour was too much for even her long-suffering tolerance. David Lloyd George and his wife, Margaret, with their daughter Megan. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Lloyd George entered Parliament in 1890, winning a by-election at Caernarvon Boroughs, the seat he retained for 55 years.

He soon made a name for himself in the House of Commons by his audacity , charm, wit, and mastery of the art of debate. During the 10 years of Liberal opposition that followed the election of 1895, he became a leading figure in the radical wing of the party. He bitterly and courageously opposed the South African War and in 1901 was nearly lynched in Birmingham , the stronghold of Joseph Chamberlain and Conservative imperialism. With the arrival of peace, Lloyd George worked up a great agitation in Wales against tax-aided grants to church schools established by Balfour’s Education Act (1902). Britannica Stories Scientists Ponder Menopause in Killer Whales Arthur J. Balfour resigned in December 1905, and Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman formed a Liberal administration, appointing Lloyd George to the Cabinet as president of the Board of Trade .

In that office, he was responsible for important legislation: the Merchant Shipping Act (1906), improving seamen’s living conditions, but also endangering their lives by raising the Plimsoll line on newly constructed ships; the Patents and Designs Act (1907), preventing foreign exploitation of British inventions; and the Port of London Act (1908), setting up the Port of London Authority. He also earned a high reputation by his patient work in settling strikes. He suffered a cruel bereavement in November 1907, when his daughter Mair died of appendicitis at the age of 17. Years afterward, the sight of her portrait could plunge him into tears. British Culture and Politics Chancellor of the Exchequer. Campbell-Bannerman’s health failed in 1908. He was succeeded as prime minister by the chancellor of the Exchequer, Herbert Henry Asquith , who appointed Lloyd George to take his own place. This was a notable promotion and made him at least a strong competitor for the premiership after Asquith. By this time, the Liberal Party’s fortunes were beginning to languish.

The House of Lords had blocked much of its social reform legislation, and the radical wing of the party was concerned that its thunder might be stolen by the nascent Labour Party unless the deadlock could be broken. At the same time, the demand for more battleships to match the German naval program threatened the finances available for social reform. It was to meet these difficulties that Lloyd George framed the famous “ People’s Budget ” of 1909, calling for taxes upon unearned increment on the sale of land and on land values, higher death duties, and a supertax on incomes above £3,000. Moreover, it seemed for a time that the House of Lords’ veto on progressive legislation would be bypassed, since the custom of the constitution forbade the upper house from interfering with the budget. In fact, however, the Conservative majority in the House of Lords, against the advice of some of its wiser members, decided to reject it. The consequences of this rejection were two general elections, a major constitutional crisis, and the ultimate passage of the Parliament Act of 1911 , which severely curtailed the powers of the upper house.

The principal burden of all this fell upon Asquith, but Lloyd George gave him vigorous support in a series of notable philippics against the aristocracy and the rich. The most famous of all was his speech at Limehouse, where he denounced the rapacity of the landlord class, especially the dukes, in unforgettable language. David Lloyd George, 1908. Editor Picks: Exploring 10 Types of Basketball Movies In 1913 he faced one of the gravest personal crises in his career. In April 1912, along with Rufus Isaacs , the attorney general, he had purchased shares in the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America at a rate well below that available to the general public. The American Marconi company was legally independent of the British concern, but the two companies were closely connected, and the latter’s shares had recently boomed as a result of the government’s decision to accept its proposal to construct a chain of radio stations throughout the empire. Lloyd George and Isaacs denied, in somewhat ambiguous language, any transactions in the shares of “the Marconi company,” a denial that technically referred only to the British company but was generally assumed to cover the American as well.

A select committee of the House of Commons revealed the facts and, although by a party majority it acquitted the ministers of blame, Lloyd George’s reputation was damaged. Social reform and the outbreak of war Connect with Britannica Facebook Twitter YouTube Instagram Pinterest Lloyd George’s major achievement during the years immediately before the war was in the field of social insurance. Inspired by a visit to Germany (1908), where he studied the Bismarckian scheme of insurance benefits, Lloyd George decided to introduce health and unemployment insurance on a similar basis in Britain . This he did in the National Insurance Act of 1911. The measure inspired bitter opposition and was even unpopular with the working class, who were not convinced by Lloyd George’s slogan “ninepence for fourpence,” the difference in these two figures being the employer’s and the state’s contribution. Lloyd George, undeterred, piloted his measure through Parliament with great skill and determination. He thus laid the foundations of the modern welfare state and, if he had done nothing else, would deserve fame for that achievement.

Though much of the government’s time during these years was occupied by the Irish question, Lloyd George played little part in it and, on the whole, left foreign policy to his colleagues. It was, therefore, something of a surprise when, in July 1911, after careful consultation with Asquith and Sir Edward Grey, he issued a formidable warning to Germany over the Moroccan crisis. When the question of entry into the war convulsed the Cabinet in late July and early August 1914, he seemed at first to incline to the isolationist section. For a brief moment he contemplated retirement. But the tide of events swept him to the other side. As chancellor, he plunged into the financial problems posed by the war. Minister of munitions and secretary of state for war Throughout the remainder of 1914 and the early months of 1915, Lloyd George was a vigorous advocate of increased munitions production. Here he came into sharp conflict with Lord Kitchener in the War Office. The resignation of Admiral Fisher in 1915 forced Asquith to reconstruct the government on a coalition basis and admit the Conservatives . In the new administration, Lloyd George became minister of munitions.

In this capacity, he made one of the most notable contributions to the victory of the Allies. His methods were unorthodox and shocked the civil service, but his energy was immense. He imported able assistants from big business and used his eloquence to induce the cooperation of organized labour. When, in the summer of 1916, the great Battle of the Somme began, supplies were forthcoming. Trending Topics Opium Wars Lloyd George acquired definite views on war strategy at an early stage. He doubted the possibility of breaking through on the Western Front and advocated instead a flank attack from the Near East . He was thus at loggerheads with the view of the official military hierarchy , cogently pressed by Sir Douglas Haig and Sir William Robertson , that the war could only be won in the West. On June 5, 1916, Kitchener was drowned on his way to Russia, when his ship struck a German mine. A last-minute accident—acute developments in the Irish situation—alone had prevented Lloyd George from travelling with him. After some hesitation, Asquith appointed him to the vacant position at the War Office.

Lloyd George held the post for five months, but Robertson as chief of the imperial general staff possessed nearly all the important powers of the war minister. Lloyd George chafed under these restrictions, the more so because he disagreed with Robertson on issues of strategy. Thus frustrated, he began to survey the whole direction of the war with increasing skepticism; and he did not conceal his doubts from his friends who, by the end of November, had become convinced that Asquith should delegate the day-to-day running of the war to a small committee whose chairman should be Lloyd George. There was undoubtedly widespread uneasiness at Asquith’s conduct of affairs, particularly in the Conservative Party . Asquith was manoeuvred into resigning on December 5 and was replaced two days later by Lloyd George. He was supported by the leading Conservatives, but the most prominent Liberal ministers resigned with Asquith. Prime minister Lloyd George was now 54 and at the height of his powers. His energy, eloquence, and ability had already made him the leading statesman of the day, and his accession to the premiership was highly popular in the country generally.

He immediately substituted a small War Cabinet of five, which was to be in constant session, for the body of 23 that had hitherto conducted affairs. The result was a general speeding up of decisions. David Lloyd George, caricature by Max Beerbohm, 1920. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. One of Lloyd George’s most notable efforts was in combating the submarine menace, which, in early 1917, threatened to starve Britain into submission. He achieved this by forcing the adoption of the convoy system upon a reluctant Admiralty . The food shortage resulting from the submarine war was acute . Drastic action had to be taken to step up agricultural production, and eventually a system of food rationing had to be introduced (1918). In these matters Lloyd George was at his best, contemptuous of red tape, determined to take action and to make his will prevail. It was in the field of grand strategy that he was least successful. Lloyd George remained profoundly skeptical of the ability of the British high command to conduct even a “Western” strategy successfully.

Without warning Haig or Robertson in advance, he confronted them at the Calais Conference of February 1917 with a plan to place the British army under French command for General Robert-Georges Nivelle’s forthcoming offensive. Haig and Robertson deeply distrusted Lloyd George from that moment onward. The Nivelle offensive was a total failure, and Lloyd George was, as a result, on shaky ground when he endeavoured to resist Haig’s proposals for a major British campaign in Flanders in the summer. After much hesitation, he gave way, and on July 31, 1917, the ill-fated Passchendaele offensive began. Although it may have forestalled a possible German attack on the French, Passchendaele, with enormous loss of life, achieved none of its main objectives. Lloyd George was now convinced of the incompetence of the British high command. He still dared not take action against them openly. Instead, he began what Sir Winston Churchill called “a series of extremely laborious and mystifying maneuvers,” with the object of creating a unified command under someone other than Haig.

In February 1918 Robertson offered his resignation, which Lloyd George accepted, but Haig remained as commander in chief. Such was Lloyd George’s distrust of Haig that, during the winter of 1917–18, he had deliberately kept him short of troops for fear that he might renew the attack. The result was that the German commander, General Erich Ludendorff , came near to launching a successful offensive against the British sector in March 1918. The emergency caused a unified command under Marshal Ferdinand Foch to be established (April), and by May the situation had stabilized. The tide now turned, and the Western Allies launched a series of successful attacks upon the exhausted Germans. The Armistice of November 1918 presented Lloyd George with a dilemma. Should he allow a return to peacetime party politics or continue the coalition? There was little doubt of the answer. The leader of the Conservatives, Bonar Law , was willing to cooperate. A somewhat perfunctory offer to include Asquith was declined. The ensuing election in December gave the coalitionists an overwhelming victory.

The rift between Lloyd George and Asquith’s supporters was now wider than ever, however, and Lloyd George was now largely dependent on Conservative support. As one of the three great statesmen at Versailles , Lloyd George must bear a major responsibility for the peace settlement . He pursued a middle course between Georges Clemenceau and Woodrow Wilson . But, throughout, Lloyd George was under pressure to pursue the more draconian policy of Clemenceau. It is to his credit that the final settlement was not far worse than it was. The treaty was well received in Britain, and in August 1919 the king conferred on Lloyd George the Order of Merit . (From left to right) Italian Prime Minister Vittorio Emanuele Orlando, British Prime Minister David … Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. A major domestic problem was Ireland, where the Sinn Fein refused to recognize the British Parliament. From 1919 to 1921 a civil war raged. In the summer of 1921, Lloyd George, with full agreement of his Conservative colleagues, reversed the policy of repression in Ireland and began the negotiations that culminated in Irish independence in December 1921.

The more rigid Tories never forgave this “surrender,” as they deemed it. In 1922 Lloyd George ran into trouble over the so-called honours scandal, when accusations were made that peerages and other honours were being sold for large campaign contributions. Tory discontent was rife, when, from a wholly unexpected quarter, a crisis occurred that drove Lloyd George from power forever. This was the Çanak incident , in which it seemed to critics that the reckless foreign policy of the government had led Britain to the verge of an unnecessary war with Turkey. When the Conservative leaders decided to appeal to the country on a coalition basis once again, a party revolt ensued. Bonar Law, who had retired because of ill health in 1921, returned to the political scene. On Oct. 19, 1922, a two-to-one majority of Conservative members of Parliament endorsed his and Stanley Baldwin’s plea to fight as an independent party. Lloyd George at once resigned. Later years and assessment The long twilight of Lloyd George’s career was a melancholy anticlimax.

The feud with the Asquithians was never healed, and from 1926 to 1931 he headed an ailing Liberal Party . He devoted himself thereafter to writing his War Memoirs (1933–36) and The Truth About the Peace Treaties (1938). In 1940 Winston Churchill invited him to join his War Cabinet, but Lloyd George declined, ostensibly on grounds of age and health. Just two months before his death, he was elevated to the peerage as Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor. David Lloyd George, 1943. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Lloyd George possessed eloquence; extraordinary charm and persuasiveness; a capacity to see the heart of problems whose complexity baffled lesser men; a profound sympathy with oppressed classes and races; and a genuine hatred of those who abused power, whether based on wealth or caste or military might. But there was an obverse side to these virtues: his love of devious methods; his carelessness over appointments and honours; and a streak of ruthlessness that left little room for the cultivation of personal friendship.

Lloyd George, for all his greatness, aroused in many persons a profound sense of mistrust, and it was in the upper-middle class, represented in politics by Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain , that he inspired the most acute misgivings. They were both determined to exclude him from office, and it would be wrong to ascribe his long years in the political wilderness solely to the declining fortunes of the Liberal Party. Lloyd George was thus never able to recover the position he had lost in 1922. It was one of the tragedies of the interwar years that, in an era not notable for political talent, the one man of genius in politics should have had to remain an impotent spectator. But his earlier achievements make his place in history secure: he laid the foundations of the welfare state and led Britain to victory in World War I.

Question: Who was British Prime Minister at the outbreak of the First World War?
Answer: Asquith